Twitter Blog: Man down!

Twitter Blog: Man down!

Twitter is a great free service so hope it is back up again very soon!

Ten Days in Ubud.

It is that time again. Galungan is next week and everyone in Bali will be looking forward to the holiday but at the same time worried about getting the money for the spending that such celebrations always entail.

I am not in Ubud at the moment but after so many years of memories the images are there still.

Some impressions from past Galungans:

The bamboo arches lying in the street as excited people work on decorating them. Children and men. The threading of decorations along them and the spirit of competition of neighbour with neighbour. Then at the last minute before raising, the piece de resistance arrives from inside where the skilled hands usually of the grandmother of the house have made the family pride and joy, the coconut leaves fashioned as a version of Dewi Sri, the goddess of the rice fields.

The frantic last minute anxiety in the air as everyone fears they have forgotten to purchase something that will be impossible to buy at the last minute. (Does that sound like Christmas Eve in the West?)

Waking on the day preceding Galungan in the darkness of predawn to the sounds of desperately squealing pigs. Knowing that it would be better to rise late and miss the bleeding of the carcases and wait until the perfume of grilling sate arrives.

Going out on Galungan and seeing everyone thronging the streets and the temples wearing breathtakingly beautiful traditional dress. All the children unmistakeably newly purchased clothes, all their mothers and aunts in sheer laces and the men in silk brocades and handwoven sarongs.

Enough to make your heart sing!! And it lasts for ten days. Till the gods go home once again to their heavenly abodes.

We have a new website now which is still being added to. The website is devoted to Balinese Art and Craft and the people who make it.

As opposed to the people who only sell it.

Take a look here!

A Trip to Java too?

It is a little over a week before we leave for Bali and I am trying to gather information that I can use in planning for the business revival.

Trying to collect information about actual producers of handmade products in Indonessia is pretty hopeless. Those sorts of people don't have websites or if they do the websites contain little information.

One example is a tenun (hand woven fabric usually in traditional Indonesian design)producer who has a website with 3 pictures, no dimensions, no prices. At least there was an email address and even an answer- but wait for it, the answer said just go to the website!

I actually know there people near Jepara on the north coast and know that they have a busy factory producing these cloths. A phone call might be better from Bali or maybe I will have to visit to know what it is they do now. After all, it is about 4 years since I last went there.

I only have 4 weeks so have to think carefully before I commit myself to long car trips that will take about 5 days at least there and back. I love going into all the tiny villages that I know where traditional handmade products are still produced. For a person totally fascinated by new and interesting fibres it is really exciting!

We already have a website which is pretty bad and needs to be updated and revamped. You can see it at www.kertasgingsir.com

The photo at the right shows part of the Peace Temple at our paper production place in Bali. The goose sadly is a concrete statue but the pool contains lots of clever and very lively fish!

You can't see our lying Buddha statue out of the picture on the left. The temple combines Bali Hindu and Buddhist philosophies and the shrine or padma faces to the general direction of India.

Going back to Ubud

To know that I am going back is exciting but tempered with the knowledge of relentless change. Of course, you can say.

But in my case I have to intervene in the unstoppable river and try to steer it in a new direction.

For the last 15 years (out of 25 or so spent in and out of Bali) I have been a papermaker. Our paper business was set up in Ubud, soon moved to Lodtunduh a few km south of Ubud and rapidly outgrew that village and moved back to Andong, a km or so out of Ubud on the road north of Peliatan.

So much has happened over that time. We became a business of hundreds of people and we streamlined again to about 70 and lots of outworkers making products in their homes with our materials.

But Bali producers stuggle in the face of Chinese competition now. Not so noticeable in the high end products like silver but with a simple peasant commodity like handmade paper, it is not so easy.

Now I have to imagine and project a new direction for us. I feel daunted and inadequate for the task. But in the face of such feelings before I have always ploughed on, making mistakes certainly but inexorably moving on. I must do so again.